Tank Larp sounds like an excuse to gratuitously add military vehicles to a larp. It does indeed add tanks and APC’s to larp. But it is done in a way that works with the plot, the world and the players.

Adding tanks is also very cool.

Making Tanks Larp Safe

Lets hit that big elephant in the room fast. How do you make a tank, Larp Safe? Tanks, after all, are not known for cuddliness. They’re known for crushing and destroying things.

Fortunately, this was not attempted with an insane amount of foam and gaffa tape. Although that would have been funny.

Instead, the focus was on missions. APCs would roll up to take players away on various missions. The tank training and battle part of the game was similarly a mission away from camp.

Safety precautions were taken to avoid player squishing. This included APCs having spotters, and tanks operating areas being carefully designated and non-pedestrian.

The Tanks Were real?

A lot of people believed that Tank Larp could not possibly use tanks. They did.

The Armoured Personnel Carrier

Players were ferried around in an APC. Her name was Connie. She was an FV432. THe FV432 is part of the FV430 series of armoured vehicles. Initially designed in the 1960s, but with updated and modified versions still in use today.

The Tanks

The tanks were actually FV432’s fitted with a 30mm cannon. These vehicles look like and act like light tanks.

In fact, take a look at a British 1970’s Scorpion tank and you’ll find something that looks a lot like the vehicles used in tank larp.

With a 30mm cannon and full turret, these could be classified as light tanks.

Structure of the LARP

I have to mention this it was unconventional but massively fitted in with the idea that the players were part of a larger war.

Time to expand.

In-Tank Larp the players are soldiers in a what is effectively a World War with one major neutral party. They are part of fast response teams that make use of newly invented tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

In a world has transitioned from medieval to a technology roughly analogous to WW1 in a far shorter time period than ours.

In our WW1 we have anachronisms like horses and sword carrying officers. In their version of things – swords and shields are in use alongside bolt action rifles.

It’s important to say this so that what follows makes sense.

The three days tank larp is played over (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) equate to 3 months of time in the game world.

Each day of the larp a newspaper would come out containing news about the game world. Sometimes mentioning the campaign’s players fought in.

The players could send out military orders and requisitions.

Time not on a mission was the players spending time in their base camp. This was pure role-play.

Impact on immersion

You might think that this putting of gameplay into a form of compressed time would mess up the immersion. It didn’t. Immersion was really high.

All the players worked with it beautifully and if anything being part of a larger world helped the players get into it. The break up between missions and camp time gave a breather where role-play thrived.

A lot of though went intoestablishing the world, it looks and feel really paid off here. Players quickly took on what it meant to be a soldier from their in game country,

Immersion levels were palpable.

Were there problems.

There were some, often focussed on the learning curve of understanding how the game world worked and how that intersected with mechanics

Here’s an example. The players sent out military orders. The natural assumption was that these would be exactly carried out. This didn’t always happen.

Why?

Well, the commanders receiving the orders were being roleplayed behind the scenes. This led to order interpretation and local knowledge leading to adjustments in what happened.

It feels to me like a good approximation of the chaos of war. But that is something that needs to be made clear.

The good news was that the game team spoke to players, listened and learned a lot. So I’m going to bet fewer issues next time.

It’s a mark of a good larp that the organisers work with the players. This happened and that is great

Also, it’s particularly important here as the game has an unconventional structure.

More Tank

It’s Cyberpunk Larp time!

I need to start with a confession. I’m a long time fan of the genre. Ever since I discovered Gibsons sprawl stories pretty much as they were coming out. I have a memory or sitting in a bar with William Gibson at a Worldcon with a crowd of fans in the 80’s. I was also amazed to hear that at the time he was collecting ugly ties.

Here we are in 2019. Very close to the Cyberpunk year of 2020 and I was off to experience Tenement 67 as a 1 day event. The event was Paradise 101.

Paradise 101 had a lot of expectation to live up.

The Concept

Paradise 101 is the place to go the Tenements for entertainment. You’ll find all pleasures here. Including the ones you may not wish to witness. It’s controlled by the syndicate and is a playground for all levels in society.

Entering The Tenements

My character was one of societies super rich, Someone with unlimited money. Able to call on the resources of a major corporation by accident of birth. I wasn’t alone. 4 of the filthy rich were going to be entering the Tenements. Each of us wearing a clone body. All we had to do was have fun and spend money.

Of course there was a lot more than that going on. Story lines abounded. Yet from my perspective they in the main washed over us. Privildge became an insulating barrier. The syndicate at first did not like us. Then they fawned over us as they realised how much money we had. The misery of the disenfranchised became a toy.

Yes this was a cyberpunk.

Gunslinger battled, drugs, pleaures and experiences lined up. Neon popped through the dark and music played everywhere.

This larp dripped presence and genre style.

Was it Fun?

Absolutey. Being made part of a group frome the same background was a great idea and I take my hat off to my fellow super rich. You were awesomely awful!. Thank you.

Was it Challenging?

Very, the setting was dark and claustrophic. Lit by dim shades of green, blue and red; and the glowing clothes worn by many of the attendees. This wasn’t the crux of the challenge though. That was emotional, We were part of a trade in pain. People were being injured ; often in a harrowing fashion for our kicks. People were sharing memories and experiences in very intimate scenes.

This was the kind of larp that places in both a story and an emotional place. It’s not something were winning is tactics. The experience itself is solid and meanigful.

Also from my position I could sort of see other stories without being able to touch them. Having something tantalising around players is very smart larp writing – bravo.

The larps location

Paradise 101 was run at Grange Live Gaming in Birmingham. It was perfect. Placing us in a maze of alleyways, rooms and cubby whole. All indoors meant no sunlight. Instead we had the right kind of illumination for cyberpunk. I got turned around in the maze of it all more than once.

Did it match expectations

Yes. In fact expectations weren’t just matched; they were exceeded.

I am now a fan of Tenement 67.

The Photo Gallery

The Video Diary

On Saturday 2nd of February, the LARPBook team assembled. Not in an awesome, “Avengers Assemble!” kind of way. More like an, it’s early and cold; get me a coffee kind of way. We were off to Gloucester for our annual pilgrimage to the What’s Your Game Kit Fair.
As a group, we like this event. There are always old friends to meet there and lots of cool gear to look at. The sandwiches are also very good.
You’ll quite a few photos and more video interviews than usual. This was a good year for us to do media. I’m hoping that is the pattern for 2019.

What’s Your Game Itself

The event meanders through Blackfriars Priory. It’s an awesome location. A 13th medieval priory filled with atmosphere, nooks and crannies. You could easily write a larp that involved exploring this place. The What’s Your Game plant plenty of signs around the site. A good idea. Wouldn’t want any larpers to get lost in here.
It might sound labyrinthine but that means plenty of space for vendors to display their ware. For me, one of the standouts of What’s Your Game is the generosity of space. It means there is space to try on and try out in a way that doesn’t feel cramped or restricted. The result is a friendly atmosphere. As even when full it does not feel overbearing. The complex handles people very well.
Also a shout out to the What’s Your Game staff. I had to rely on a walking stick this weekend and they made sure I knew about all the easy ways to get around. Thank You!

The Mead

For the last couple of years, I’ve run into new mead makers at What’s Your Game. Last year it was Magic Mead. This year it was Wye Valley Meadery who make an excellent sparkling session mead. Also, Sam of the Crimson Moon was talking about their new enterprise Duntabbin. A specialist mead shop. Is it all about the mead?

The Larp Kit

It’s not all about the mead as there was a great range of larp kit. For the first time, I didn’t come away with more costume. That’s only because I didn’t have a plan for what I needed. Had that been on my mind it would have been a very different outcome.
A good sign is always new traders. They were here. Quite a few were doing their first bit of con or field trading. It happens every year. I for one am very glad that What’s Your Game attracts both established and new artisans.

Medieval Combat

Between the priory buildings, there is a small green. Every year something happens here. This year we had demonstrations of from civil war re-enactors and also medieval combat. Expect to hear more about medieval combat in LARPBook.

We were invited to Colony Wars Larp, to join up with a band of colonial marines. So Stuart and I travelled to a venue running alongside Stansted airport runway to find out more. What we encountered were colonial marines, morally ambiguous synthetics, apes and giant spiders. It was a good larp.

Of course a good larp, doesn’t say much. So what do I mean.

The Setting

Aliens hints a large number if surveyed worlds, terraforming projects and drops by marines. Couple this with the strong 80’s vibe that permeates the Aliens universe, the existence of the Engineers, and Predators and we have a rich mythos that is lightly explored on screen. This is what Colony Wars tapped into – quite successfully.

Of course one universe is never enough. So for this event the feel and attitude of the Apes from Planet of the Apes is also added. Interestingly the more thoughtful Apes and gung-ho marines made an interesting combination. Also when I say Planet of the Apes this is not a literal taking from the movie. The humanoid apes are there. This variation saw a shamanistic religion being developed by the Ape players. Which is great – just the sort of thing Weyland-Yutani likes exploiting.

Ok so that’s the vibe –

What about the game itself ?

First of all – I loved the Ape masks. These were all specially created for this event and were very comfortable to wear. Instead of having latex in contact with skin, we had the inside of a motorcycle balaclava. Great idea as this a fair more breathable and friendly material. It meant that the masks could be worn all day, which definitely aided immersion.

Next up I’ve got to shout out the guys playing marines. Great combat gear and also a superb level of Nerf modification. My favourite had to be the M41A Pulse Rifle, Made from 3D printed parts mounted over a nerf chassis this really looked and felt the part.

Also the marines and Weyland-Yutani (insert expletive here) staff, put together a great camp with cooking on an open fire. There was a kind of Vietnam feel here and that to me that hit the mark.

The rules themselves were minimal. There were safety considerations and it the outcomes of combat and technology use were quickly apparent. The device of having one of the game refs play a synthetic really helped glue things together.

The Puppets

An aspect to this game that really stood out was the use puppeteering. It worked like this. In game there were creatures (face huggers and giant spiders) that the players encountered. The actions of these were controlled by a puppeteer who wore black. The idea was that players would focus on the beastie and not on the crew member. This worked supremely well. The players role-played keeping their focus on the creatures and ignored the crew. Speaking to them later it looks as if they were genuinely only observing the puppets.

Oddly during my time playing a spider I found myself remembering and channelling the amazing spiders from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. Brilliant book and seriously recommended.

Colony Wars is a great example of what a small larp can achieve. Good plot, well organised but above all run with the players very much in mind. This was a first class event.

My final view is that of the players and organisers. Fantastic people. Very friendly and I can’t thank them enough for asking us in.

The Photos

What comes next marine

Predator – you can’t see me

We need more coffee

Xenomorph Jazz hands

Rocking this forest

Scientist – knowledge is a burden

The Alien says it this was big

The Apes need to discuss things

Elite Marine Sitting down

Apes like to think

Dance like an alien

Its a wood, what could go wornf

Time to make a call

Apes around the fire

Which predator wears a mask like this

The marines are getting whistful

Mad scientists make mutatnts

Apes and Marines

The Ape Shaman

The Apes an Aliens have a relationship

The Facehugger wanted to be friends

Don’t worry he’ll be fine

Time to mvoe

How dud we get into this

My beret is looking good

Thoughtful

Xenomorph tag

Marine Corps Media

Stuarts Xemomorph interview

Prep time

Marines let think about this

No

Still getting out of here

Something Furry in the wood

Snacktime

Will there be more?

At the end of the game the organisers said no more. This was the last. I later saw the words never say never crop up online. So this is why no link to the organisers. At least no until they say they want to more. Should that happen I’ll be more than happy to report back to you.

Welcome to Shard. This event by Twilight Realms Larp was played om the weekend starting 6th April 2018. LARPBook was there and we covered it in a 3 pronged attack

Thomas: Was a Player

Rob: Was Crew (and took some photos)

Stuart: Walked around watching and taking a lot of video footage.

You’ll be seeing photos and videos. If you’d like to hear a discussion take a look at the LARPBook Show Episode 63, with audio here and video here.

Let’s Start with a Trailer

A Little More About Twilight Realms

Also known affectionately as TR by its players. Twilight Realms started at the turn of the century as a world building larp. All the initial players had a hand in developing nation states set in the World of Tempress. A world with a somewhat violent history where Priests and Sorcerers had fought for control and it had not worked out well. Nations were left separated by hard to heal rifts and trade had all but broken down. The story starts about 100 years after this apocalypse with an attempt to restore trade and trust between nations.

So started a campaign that ran for 10 years ( i know I was at the tenth anniversary party). This period created a vast amount of lore that today still informs and has an impact on the direction and content of the current game.

Then there was a hiatus for a few years

Then Twilight Realms the next generation started.

This time there was a central world referee and world plot controller. Set 10 years after the original campaign this new series of events follows a group of character caught in world shaking events that if not left unchecked may very well lead the world once again down a very dark path.

This reset is very much like a Fantasy RPG where players find themselves in a continuously evolving story that is played out in a rolling campaign. Each event follows on from the last. Many of the player characters are new and learning secrets not known to many. Some of the players bring characters from the first run. With all the baggage that can entail.

This is big scale heroic high fantasy.

Shard

Let’s talk about the event itself, Shard.

The name describes a Shard – a piece of a stone imbued with the powers of a God, It’s existence sends the players on a quest to gather more of its parts and in so doing create a weapon that will help them against a growing supernatural threat that is bringing war and terror to the world.

TR plays it’s games over a Friday and Saturday. Starting Friday evening. Playing all day Saturday with a social gathering at the end of the event. Sunday is breakfast, chat and clean up time. It’s a format that has worked well and creates a relaxed larping environment.

I’ve been thinking about how to best describe this game. I certainly had a very good time, with some excellent stand out scenes. I also firmly believe that everyone playing will remember their own set of scenes they loved. I’m also aware that parts of this game contain plot spoilers for the next event. I want to avoid those. So here is the plan. I’m going to describe my favourite moments and then show you a couple of photo galleries and video diaries that we shot during the game. This I hope will give you an idea.

Magic Moments

I was given the chance to bring back to life an old NPC. An Elven Priest and Alchemist determined to monitor and protect the purity of his race. He’s also a bit of a political animal and will sometimes do unexpected things if he see’s useful knowledge coming out of them. Fortunately to the players he also follows orders from the King – which helped get around some problems. With this character I loved his chance to meet up with an old Player Character enemy that he really did not like or trust. That was fun, but not as much as roleplaying the blessing of a feast and letting my inner evangelist came out to play. Hands were waved so hard in the air there was a chance of actually taking off.

Next up I was playing a freedom fighter who’s band had just captured some enemy soldiers on the retreat. We had a chance to warm up before the players found us. In this time we looked at ways to restrain our captives, we mocked up on how to look violent and created character roles. We wanted both sides of this exchange to have personalities. So we talked, joked and experimented. When the time came to interact with the players everything was established and things flowed beautifully.

Part of the prep involved menacing small talk about the weather as a foul means of torture.

The scene ended with a battle between a legionary shield wall and a small band of fighters. it was great stuff.

The Harem

This has to stand up as something exceptional. We ended up playing the butchest Harem in history. A keenness to wield swords had left us more than little low on female crew for a planned harem scene. No problem a mostly all male crew donned sari’s practiced sashaying, tried out seductive voices and put on our sexiest poses. If you watch the show that goes with this article you’ll hear the name Ambrose mentioned. Simply because he was not only an awesome woman, but a wonderful leader of our harem. Thank you Ambrose. Also my apologies to both players and referees. We had a bit too much fun in our dresses. Some of those who encountered us may very well be in need of counselling.

First Impressions

Clear simplicity are the two words that first come to mind. The start of the home page is dominated by a single search box; Google style. Type in what you are looking for and the site will try and find it.

Scrolling down takes us to instructor buttons that will help its two primary audiences (larp organisers and larpers), learn how to use Find My Larp. These help areas are simply written and should be a help to anyone. For me the focus is on organisers and there is some nice transparency on how payments later. I’ll come back to the payments later but for now lets say I like the method used.

Finally we come to options to select larp by country and genre. Arranged in a grid with large nicely illustrated buttons these are nice and easy to use.

Searching

So how easy is it to search?

Well the home search box didn’t immediately accept text for me. However clicking on the magnifying glass logo solved that. Simple text searches work well and bring up the available options

Also You move from into a search area with options for selecting, countries, genres, price ranges and if the larp is child friendly or not. I really applaud the indictor for child friendly. Very often it is not explicity stated on larp websites if an event is child appropriate or not. So making this a thing here is really important. Well done.

Putting in prices ranges is another smart move. It feels as if the price differentials in larp get bigger every year. Again leading this to be something that needs to be clearly illustrated.

Search results are shown on a grid of results, in a list, or on a map. The map is cool. Although personally I prefer the grid. This is a personal response – I just happen to find this view easy to read.

Listings

So now we now that we can find things what does a larp listing look like?

Like a product listing is the answwer. The illustration is from Bothwell School of Witchcraft. An inaugral listng for Find My Larp. You can see space for a large clear illustration and easy to use ticket selectors. Scrolling down there is plenty of space for descriptive text, a link to the larps creators, a Google map of its location.

Importantly there is plenty of space to describe both the larp and any payment options / terms. Flicking through the listings I haven’t found anything that looks like a larp that has run out of space describing itself. Big tick there.

Money

Find My Larp takes payments for tickets. This is done via Stripe. You may not have heard of Stripe before. Do not be concerned about that. Stripe is an online credit card processing system that has been making big inroads with Internet developers. It is very secure. It’s designed from the ground up to seamlessly integrate into websites. Outside of LARPBook I spend some of my time working on website development and technology consulting. Like a lot of people in my position I’ve been won over by Stripe so I am very pleased to see it being used instead of PayPal.

This is a great decision.

Final Thoughts

Find My Larp is a welcome addition to the websites on the Internet that list larps. It is well thought out and it is easy to use. I’ll admit I haven’t made a booking through it yet – though that is almost certainly only a matter of time.

If I was launching a new larp – I would list here. No question about it.

I particularly like its International slant. Travel for larp and in fact larp itself is becoming global. Working with that trend can only be the smart move for Find My Larp.

Click Here for Find My Larp

A few weekends ago I travelled northwards to the new Fear of The Dark site to play in their first event for a number of years. That event was Beltane and I’ll be talking about it here

First though it seems appropriate to confess an interest and perhaps tell a little bit of the Fear of The Dark (FoTD) back story. FoTD is a small Welsh larping group that have been around for about 25 years. I had my first larping experience with them. Since then I’ve been a player, crew, writer and referee with the group. In other words I’ve been pretty involved and that does leave me with a desire for Fear of The Dark to do more.

The Background

FoTD games all have a number of distinguishing features. They are very real world. If you can stabbed, shot, stapled, chopped, minced, munched or maimed in any kind of way then the repercussions on your character will be serious. No sudden magical healing. This also extends to the setting – modern day games are set in the here and now. These can riff off the news right up until the start of the event. Historical events take on aspects of actual history. Even explorations into Science Fiction and Fantasy are all designed to have that real cutting edge.

These are also freeform larps. In that there are no complex rule or character generation systems. You simply have to come up with a story for your character and play that character. The sense of the real will take over the rest.

In a sense these games have a Nordic feel as they are all about pushing the meta and rules to one side that the player can ride an emotional experience.

Beltane was the first game since 2012 and it was to be the start of a series of games of which 4 are planned. Note that when I say series I mean one after another. I do not mean that the stories are linked. Campaign style play is incredibly rare in Fear of The Dark. Most events are one off stories. If you are lucky the larp may get a rerun. In the main though these are all stand alone larps. It does mean that FoTD are back from their hiatus.

Beltane

Avoiding spoilers here’s the backstory. Its the year 1268. Only 5 years before Edward 1st invades Wales and the construction of Caerphilly Castle by Gilbert de Clare has just started. It is a difficult time for Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. In mid Wales maybe a days travel from the English border a band of gypsies aim to host a Beltane festival. For various reasons people start to gather at a nearby inn. Events start to unfold. Now I cannot say which people arrive at the tavern as true to FoTD style those characters are created by the characters independently of each other. On this run it included nobles,spies, gypsies, spies and thieves. An odd mixing of medieval society.

So events unfolded. Slowly at first. Inexorably tensions and suspicions started to rise. In the early hours of the morning apparitions ‘convinced’ 3 of the inns guests to venture outside – ill equipped I should say as the players reacted fully in character and went out without shoes or boots. By the morning time everyone had their own ideas, but it was time for the start of the Beltane festival. A festival that did not go well for any of the players

At this point I have to stop as I am either going to give away spoilers or continue to sound like a B movie voice over.

Lets put it into context. There was a lot of trepidation in this event. Quite a bit of I am scared of that. A fair degree of I am fighting against that and more than enough creepiness. Beltane had two runs. I was on the second and there a couple of scenes that I will not forget for a while. Perhaps the most memorable being one in which trust between evil and church as being negotiated.

Was it Good?

For me this was a good event. The new site for FoTD games worked well. The game felt right and the handover to a second generation of writers and refs felt somewhat special. I can’t wait for my next outing with Fear of The Dark.

Last weekend (if you’re in the future that’s starting on March 24th 2017). I crewing at the Twilight Realms event “Black Heart”. The latest addition to an ongoing campaign in the clubs Tempress setting. This isn’t a review; I was playing a new NPC character so that makes me too close to the running of the event to do a proper impartial analysis. This is more of an overview.

As with all Tempress games this was a high fantasy event. As an ongoing part of the latest campaign it was very high stakes. The players are a party that have become embroiled in changes to the world following the rise of a resistance against a powerful and expanding empire (in game – the Helevetian Empire. Best thought of being very much this games version of the Roman Empire.)

The story was simple. Investigate what the “Empire” was doing in a seized portion of the country of Brindle. The problem, Brindle is a country once ruled by Vampires. Now at least a part of it is under the control of the empire who are undertaking some very unethical experiments on magic and immortality.

The game started on Friday night. Arrival on site was well organised in that – this is were you unload and this is your accommodation allocation. You knew where to go and people pitched in, making the unloading of cars a breeze.

From a crew point of view we had individual briefings. Meaning each NPC player only knew the information they were supposed to know. There was also a lot of written material to digest. I like this approach of only knowing what you need to know. It makes playing your specific part easier as you can just focus on what matters to your character.

Set dressing also proceeded quickly. The game was ready to play.

In this event Twilight Realms refs were trying out some new Walkie Talkies. This worked out great and really added to creating good game flow.

The game structure was this. Friday night introduced the story. Saturday was an open sandbox larp. The players could do whatever they wanted. In any way they wanted. Success would give them information and resources. Failure would have anything from no effect on the game world through to dire consequences. However personal failures and problems were also possible.

The actual end was a success in terms of the story. However the majority of the party were left with personal issues that will have to be dealt with.

My NPC was a researcher driven mad by the unexpected consequences of his work. A beautiful role that gave me a chance to play a large range of emotions. Ok – it meant I could ham it up. I was also able to work up some physical play using a walking stick. Perfect. Later in the game there was also a chance for a bit of monstering. So for me, this was a good event

In terms of game flow the players started as planned and then started to have all kinds of ideas. Some of them uncannily accurate. Others were wild flights of fancy. The refs and crew adapted by making decisions on encounters, information dispersal and the timings of NPC appearances.

This made the event a highly interactive experience.

At this point I’d like to make a special note of thanks to the monster crew. This team worked non stop to give the players a good experience.

That’s one of the reasons I like the Twilight Realms experience. Everyone, players and crew alike set out to create a great experience.

The ending of this event leaves with a lot of story options. Already there more than a little curiosity as to how the impact of Black Heart plays out.

Event Photo Gallery

All the photos for this event were taken by the Twilight Realms team.

The Bat Creatures

Dark Heart featured some large bat like monsters. During the game they became the players nightmares.